The Pinch Podcast – Episodes Thread

[Aganarama]

Really enjoyed, and would recommend, the latest podcast on overseas signings. Great insight.

And I am all in on the Danish central defender!

 

[Glenluce Blade]

Thanks Aganarama , really enjoyed the chat - hope to get Andy back on later in the window

 

[Frank the tank]

Yeah listened to that twice yesterday as missed bits first time round
Really interesting and gives some context to how much goes into foreign signings

 

[Cappy]

A good podcast form The Pinch today, with solid considerations of what might be the different decision inputs for the change in manager and how the owners may see things

 

[bakeblade]

A good podcast form The Pinch today, with solid considerations of what might be the different decision inputs for the change in manager and how the owners may see things

Ben and Roy back on latest Pinch pod

 

[brownblade]

Listening to the two parter about our squad last night... That was actually a squad that could have got promoted. Obviously lots of caveats, change, injuries, etc.

There can be no excuses next season if we were to wisely (LOL) wheel and deal.

Undoubtedly we have to sell Sydie or Gus, or both. I'd sell them both in the "playing Football Manager" scenario, i.e removing any real emotion. But I really really hope we can tie Brooks and Seriki down long term.

 

[brownblade]

Forgot to say at the time, that I really identified with the Scottish fan a few weeks ago, having lived down South for the majority of my life and rarely knowing other Blades. Truly a ridiculous, torturous life we chose.

 

[fleckagainagainagain…]

Enjoyed the end of season analysis pod!

Hope I’m wrong but I still think you’re being overly optimistic based on those 20 games in the middle of the season.

You said later on that when a player has occasional good games but mostly poor ones - that doesn’t necessarily mean there is a good player waiting to come out, most likely he’s just a poor player and poor players are inconsistent. That’s how I feel about our team.

I worry that run in the middle made us look better than we were because:

• it was against pretty poor teams, with wilder getting the upside from Selles’s tough fixtures. Aside from Ipswich, We still didn’t get a point against a top 6 team in that run. Some of the results that looked good at the time now look less impressive (Leicester). As you say, we were never really competitive against the top 6 all season so we can’t say we had a chance of being up there.
• We got quite lucky within games. We benefitted from 3 straight reds for opponents (two in the first halves) in our favour
• there were still concerning things about the performances even in that run. The inability to have a style that can last more than 70 mins (see nearly throwing away a 3-0 lead vs Leicester, clinging on in other games). We never really developed a convincing midfield or control of games.
• even our ‘good’ run contained bad defeats. Getting battered at Wrexham in a big game at the peak of our form, shows how far away we were. No team that gets done that badly can be serious about the top 6
• it was bookended by poor performances and results that can’t just be explained away as either ‘Selles was in charge’ or ‘the players were on the beach’
• I think even at the time it was clear we weren’t developing a replicable style that could consistently win games against decent teams and get us challenging for promotion, the drop off was obviously coming once our luck ran out and we played some better teams

Maybe it doesn’t matter now as the season’s over anyway. But if you think there’s essentially a promotion challenging team in there, and we just need some tweaks and a better start - I disagree. I don’t think we have a basis of a good team - we were a poor team that deservedly got poor results. We have a few decent parts but they don’t fit well together at all. We don’t have a basis of any kind of midfield that can control games, we don’t have a solid defence and we aren’t progressing towards building these things. We’d be better off ripping things up and starting again, rather than tweaks to something that fundamentally didn’t work - and wasn’t close to working - this season.